U.S. Army Lt. Col. Marc Hutson (center), commander, 1st Battalion, 327th Infantry Division, 101st Airborne, Fort Campbell, Ky., holds a meeting with local Iraqis from Hawijah and Ryiad, Iraq, to discuss the reopening of route Trans-Am near Forward Operating Base McHenry, Nov. 1, 2005.  U.S. Air Force photo by Tech. Sgt. Andy Dunaway

I used to be the Lt Col.’s nanny.

He and his wife, Maj. Jane Hutson are two of the most incredible people I have ever known in my life. And they’ve done things for our Army that are being employed today. Major things.

Aaaaaand....they got me a ride in a Stryker one day! (before quite a few Army folks ever did I might add):

I got to meet Iraqis that were here helping us to liberate their country, too.
(they couldn’t thank us enough, BTW)

I’m so proud and honored to call them friends. Can ya tell?

Thanks for indulging me. I’m having happy flashbacks.

Photo source for Lt. Col. Hutson.

Just how close was the relationship between the White House and disgraced lobbyist Jack Abramoff? The Bush Administration again faced questions about those ties after an e-mail Abramoff sent a journalist friend surfaced last week in which Abramoff wrote that he had met President Bush almost a dozen times over the past five years, and even received an invitation to the President’s Crawford, Texas ranch along with other large political donors. Bush “has one of the best memories of any politician I have ever met,” Abramoff mused in the e-mail last month, adding that, He “saw me in almost a dozen settings, and joked with me about a bunch of things, including details of my kids.” The White House, however, has continued to assert that the President had no recollection of ever meeting Abramoff. When TIME reported in January that it had viewed unpublished photographs of Abramoff with Bush, aides responded that the pictures meant nothing since the President is photographed with thousands of supporters and White House visitors every year.

Now, finally, the first such photo has come to light. It shows a bearded Abramoff in the background as Bush greets an Abramoff client, Raul Garza, who was then the chairman of the Kickapoo Traditional Tribe of Texas; Bush senior advisor Karl Rove looks on.

This has to be the most retarded “scandal” I have ever had to squint to make out!
BWAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA!!!!!!!!!!!!!

That’s it. I’m never voting for George W Bush for President of the United States ever again!

(have you noticed that Karl Rove and scandal have the same number of syllables??? Hmmmm???)

Bemember when I said you can pick your nose and you can pick your friends....?
Whell, *I’d* pick Beth’s nose. Because SHE found penis puppetry pics and I’ve only heard about it but never seen it.
THAT, and she lurves me almost as much as I heart her. And she so dammed HOT!!!!!

(but don’t tell her I said that or I might become infamous)

So anyways.... could someone make me a hamburger please?

Close the book.

“They say that their countries are free but they are lying. They are held hostage by Zionists and the Americans and Europeans should pay for that,” Ahmadinejad told a crowd on the anniversary of the 1979 Islamic revolution.  Iran’s Mahmoud Ahmadinejad rounded on the West on Saturday, accusing European countries of being Israeli puppets for publishing newspaper cartoons of the Prophet Mohammad.

On April 1, 1979, Ayatollah Khomeni declared Iran an Islamic Republic.  Later, that same month, President Jimmy Carter was attacked by a killer rabbit. 

In November of 1979 Iranian militants stormed the United States Embassy in Tehran and took approximately seventy Americans captive.

France’s law enforcement and prison system have been sharply criticised by Europe’s human rights watchdog.

The Council of Europe found prisons were overcrowded and police operated with a sense of impunity, according to excerpts from a report due next week.

The council’s human rights commissioner Alvaro Gil-Robles said there was a “widening gap” between the ”text of law and what is actually practiced”.

The report makes 50 recommendations to improve France’s record.

They include faster and more effective access to legal assistance for detainees, separating convicts and people awaiting trial and shortening the maximum allowed 45-day solitary confinement.

Details of the report were leaked to Le Parisien newspaper, and confirmed by Mr Gil-Robles.

‘System of justice’

The findings are based on Mr Gil-Robles inspection of seven prisons and five police precincts last September.

He said France “has a relatively complete legal arsenal offering a high level of human rights protection” but “does not always give itself sufficient means to put it into application”.

He found prisons were overcrowded and dirty, jail cells in police stations were in a terrible state and the justice system was too slow.

He criticised the treatment of minors in prisons and warned that a ”hardening of immigration policies… risks violating the rights of genuine asylum seekers”.

He said there was a weak reaction to anti-Semitic and racist crimes and called on France to fight against all forms of police brutality and violence.

“What is most important for me is that the penitentiary system is not a system of vengeance but a system of justice - for punishing criminals and, afterwards, permitting them to reintegrate into society,” Mr Gil-Robles told France-Info radio.

“Today, this is not possible given the current state” of the French system.

The Council of Europe is intended as the guardian of human rights, democracy and the rule of law in all its 46-member states.

What do you think of the Joint Chiefs issuing a protest to The Washington Post over the cartoon of the U.S. soldier/amputee returning from Iraq?

Well, it was a literal reading on their part. Toles wasn’t mocking wounded soldiers—he was just using a strong metaphor. I thought it was an effective cartoon, but the blowback was understandable, and I’m sure Tom was ready for it.